Yours Truly, 2095 Excerpt Tour @PaoneBrian @GoddessFish

Yours Truly, 2095

by Brian Paone

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GENRE: Time Travel Romance

Jeff Blue – the victim of a time-travel conspiracy – wakes up trapped in the year 2095. The only familiar face is J0, a robotic copy of the wife he left behind in 1981. But can she be trusted? J0 could be the only key to unlock Jeff’s journey home, but it will require her to do something against her programming , something human.

During Jeff’s perilous journey through the future, he will have to discover the truth about J0’s origins, and solve the mystery behind how he wound up in 2095, in order to uncover the reality of his own destiny.

Armed with a one-way ticket to the moon, Jeff must race against the clock to seize what might be his last chance to return home to his time. A time without hover cars, Justice Computers, or TeleSkins – a time over 100 years ago.

The cold wind blew as I crossed my arms to block out the chill. I took the long way to the mall, hoping that I could bore J0 somehow if she was actually monitoring my movements. After about an hour of being lost in my daydreams, I found myself in the mall parking lot.

I couldn’t believe that it still looked almost exactly the same as it did in 1981. Well, almost anyway. This version of the mall had a parking lot bustling with futuristic flying cars and trucks. Every vehicle levitated around the rows of parked vehicles. I laughed to myself as I thought about how there was no such thing as parallel parking anymore. It was all so surreal.

Julie and I had taken a trip to this very mall the day before I woke up here in 2095. We had spent the day shopping and just holding hands. It seemed that all the grime from Susan’s death fell away that day, for just a couple of hours. However, Julie eventually became distant and nasty toward me, like so many other days had recently ended. We wound up screaming at each other right in front of Jordan Marsh. She demanded the keys to the Thunderbird. She sat in the car and waited for me while I sat in the food pavilion and sulked over what had become of our marriage. I supposed I should have at least been grateful that she didn’t take off and leave me stranded.

Days just seemed to slowly line up outside the door, waiting to consume me. I then realized that maybe I had always been living in a lonely world. Maybe I didn’t even know it until I came here to 2095.

Then I noticed it wasn’t called Isabella Creek Mall anymore. It had been renamed to Kuiama’s Shopping Center. Its new name was brightly displayed in neon lights. The sign seemed to keep watch over the glass mouth-shaped portal that welcomed shoppers and mallrats to enter its brick-and-mortar belly.

I took a deep breath and entered the shopping monstrosity through its main entrance. The outside may have looked like it did over a hundred years ago, but the inside was very different. Everything was so slick and shiny, and appeared almost aerodynamic. I smiled when I saw the architecture. At least the malls of the future looked just like I had always imagined them.

I noticed stores that I had never even heard of, most of them selling merchandise that I was ignorant of as well. While I wanted to see my old home, I couldn’t help but keep wandering the mall first. As I was about to pass by a flower shop on the second floor, I found myself drawn in by a large display of Gerbera daisies. I stopped and looked at the sign over the flower shop’s door.

April Showers. What a clever name.

Brian Paone was born and raised in the Salem, Massachusetts area. An award winning author, his love of writing began through the medium of short stories at the young age of twelve. After almost 20 years of consistently writing short stories for only his friends and family to read, Brian’s first full-length novel was published in 2007, and he has published two more since then. Brian is married to an Officer in the US Navy, and they have 3 children. Brian is a Police Officer for the St. Mary’s GA Police Department and has been working in Law Enforcement since 2002. He is also a self-proclaimed roller coaster junkie, and his favorite color is burnt-orange.